


Once Upon a Time

by Unholy_Author



Series: The Life of Thebes [2]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Fluff, M/M, and a reflection of their lives, honestly just Jack thinking about what's happened so far
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-21
Updated: 2021-01-21
Packaged: 2021-03-13 07:48:17
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,066
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28899912
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Unholy_Author/pseuds/Unholy_Author
Summary: It's been years since the SEP, when Jack met his mate. It's been years since everything fell apart and he'd had to piece it all back together.
Relationships: Reaper | Gabriel Reyes/Soldier: 76 | Jack Morrison
Series: The Life of Thebes [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2119473
Comments: 1
Kudos: 24





	Once Upon a Time

**Author's Note:**

> Brought to you by Otterplop on Twitter

It was a photo album. That was what derailed Jack’s efforts to clean out the basement. He’d found it in a dusty box underneath a pile of other boxes with Hanukkah and Halloween decorations. Jack had almost thrown it out without even looking inside, assuming it was another collection of cheap plastic and glitter that Gabe insisted on keeping but would also never miss if Jack just didn’t say anything. The only reason he’d opened it was because it had been heavier than he’d expected. After the discovery of the album, he’d sat down on the floor and flipped it open, nostalgia immediately distracting him from the task at hand.

It was an album that he’d put together himself years ago when Overwatch had been disbanded. A fit of sentiment that he’d never told anyone about. A slightly desperate attempt to compile the remnants of his life when it was falling apart.

The first photos were ones that he’d gotten from his parents, or inherited when they’d died. Pictures of him as a baby. A child. Growing up. His presentation as an omega. Graduation. The day before he left to boot camp. The day he came back. His mother had gasped so loudly when she’d seen him with a buzzcut and he’d laughed and laughed. There were more pictures after that. And then one page held only one photo. A single, ragged photo. The only one from his time in the soldier enhancement program. It had been taken at the very end, with the only five survivors. He and Jack were standing next to each other in it, looking grim. The loss of the others, of most of those they’d joined the program with, had weighed heavily on them both.

More on Gabriel than anyone else, Jack would realize later. 

Jack’s entire body unconsciously sagged as he looked at it, a familiar ache of sadness settling in his chest as he gently rubbed a fingertip over the faces he saw there. Remembering the faces that weren’t. Thinking back, he thought that losing them, the small pack that they’d found in each other as they went through the experiments together, that might have been what started Gabriel on his path of self-destruction. He’d always cared deeply for them all. As a dominant alpha and as a friend. Losing so many of them…

The photos were sporadic at best, for a while after that. He and Gabriel had become Thebes, and their work was more often than not so highly classified that even the idea of a photograph was illegal. But Jack’s lips curled as he remembered. Freshly mated and with the world in front of them. He and Gabriel had never felt more invencible. Even when Thebes was no longer needed and they’d been slotted to join Overwatch instead. Even when their paths took them in different directions. Even when… 

Jack took a deep breath.

Even after the explosion. After Reaper was born. After Jack lost his true mate. Lost the man he knew.

It hadn’t been unexpected, exactly. With someone like Gabe, someone who cares so deeply and so selflessly, _especially_ a dominant alpha, you can only take so much before they break. And everything had been taken from Gabriel, then. Everything except Jack. And Gabriel, ridiculous Gabriel, decided that the way to protect the one man in the world it would truly destroy him to lose, was to leave him. 

The photos were practically nonexistent for a while. A huge gap in time between the smiling faces he’d known in Overwatch and the next period of his life that he’d bothered to document. And even then, it was once again only a single photo that Jack had bothered to stick inside. He hadn’t even glued it down, only shoved it between two of the pages. A clear candid of Reaper in some backwater city Jack could not remember the name of. His arms hanging down by his sides, shotguns loose in his grip. Head tilted up toward the sun.

It hadn’t been long after that photo that Reaper and Soldier 76 had been thrown together in a firefight by pure circumstance. Reaper had never been able to hurt Soldier 76. Not really. They exchanged blows and shot at each other, but the wounds were bruises at worst. The bullets always flew wide. Neither of them could bear to hurt their true mate. Even if their choses had put them at odds with one another. The final break had happened when Soldier 76 managed to pin Reaper down and had a fist pulled back, ready to punch him in the face. Reaper hadn’t fought. He’d only laid there. Waiting. Accepting. 

“What are we doing?” Soldier 76 had whispered.

“I don’t know anymore. I don’t know,” Reaper had replied. They had both been so tired. So bone-deep exhausted and lonely and afraid and hurt. 

Gabriel and Jack had finished the fight between Reaper and Soldier 76. They simply walked away, and never stopped. They settled, eventually. In America. Kansas. Somewhere far closer to Jack’s home than Gabriel’s, but he’d never minded. They rebuilt together. Away from… well, from everything else. It was the world that had torn them apart from each other in the first place, and they weren’t about to let it happen again.

A soft creak from the floor above Jack’s head had him looking up. He heard the back door open and close, heavy footfalls making their way through the kitchen. The entire house smelled like the two of them, by then, but Jack could still sense when the fresh scent of Gabriel filtered down to him. 

“Jackie?” Gabriel called out. 

“Basement,” Jack called back. The steps resumed, and Jack could track Gabriel’s progression to and then down the stairs until Gabriel came around the corner and into Jack’s line of sight. Gabriel smirked, arching a brow at the sight of Jack sitting in the middle of the floor with the album spread out over his lap.

“What happened to you cleaning this whole place up before I finished feeding the goats, huh?”

“I got distracted, sue me,” Jack said.

“Is that a scrapbook?” Gabe asked curiously, walking over. Jack nodded.

“Yeah. I just picked it up and… got lost in thought, I guess.”

“About what?”

“Nothing important. Hey, do we have any extra copies of our wedding pictures? I want to update this.”


End file.
